Annual Salary Calculator: Hourly to Yearly and Take-Home

Page last updated 23 Oct 2026

How to use it

Put in your pay and choose whether it is hourly, weekly, every two weeks, twice a month, monthly or yearly. Every other period is worked out from it.
Adjust the hours a week and days a week to match your contract, and enter any unpaid weeks off so the hourly rate reflects what you are really paid for.
Choose your filing status, enter your state income tax rate, and add any annual 401(k) contributions and health premiums taken from your pay.
The table shows gross and take-home for every pay period. The breakdown below shows exactly what is deducted and what share of your gross pay each item takes.

How is take-home pay calculated?

Pay in any period is converted to a yearly figure using your hours a week and paid weeks. Federal income tax uses the 2026 brackets and standard deductions for your filing status after any pre-tax retirement and health deductions. Social Security is 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 and Medicare is 1.45%, plus 0.9% above the Additional Medicare Tax threshold. State tax is the flat rate you enter. Health premiums reduce the wages FICA applies to; traditional 401(k) contributions do not. Overtime is paid at time and a half on top of base pay.

For example, $72,000 a year as a single filer in 2026 with no state tax is $34.62 an hour over 2,080 hours. Federal tax on $55,900 of taxable income, after the $16,100 standard deduction, is $7,010, and Social Security and Medicare are $5,508. That leaves $59,482 a year, or $4,957 a month, an effective rate of 17.4%. A $5,000 raise adds $3,518 to take-home pay. The pay is made up; yours comes from what you type.

Who should use it

Employees comparing job offers quoted in different ways
Anyone turning an hourly rate into a yearly salary or the reverse
People checking what a raise is really worth after tax
Workers estimating take-home pay before accepting a job

Who should not use this

Anyone who needs an exact paycheck; payroll uses your Form W-4 and withholding tables, and this uses annual brackets
Self-employed people; this tool does not calculate self-employment tax
Anyone with other income, credits or several jobs, which change the real tax

Limitations

Federal tax only, for one employee on one job, using the 2026 brackets and standard deductions.
State tax is a flat rate you type; local taxes and state disability or family leave contributions are not included.
No credits, itemised deductions or other income are modelled.
The figures need updating each January, when the IRS publishes new brackets and the Social Security wage base changes.
Nothing is uploaded or stored on a server. Clearing your browser data also removes the saved profile.

How to calculate your salary from an hourly wage

Multiply your hourly rate by the hours you work in a week, then by the weeks you are paid in a year. That is the whole calculation, and the only part people get wrong is the last number.

The standard sum $34.62 an hour × 40 hours × 52 weeks = $72,000 a year.

Run the other way: $72,000 ÷ 52 = $1,384.62 a week, and ÷ 40 = $34.62 an hour.

The shortcut most payroll departments use is 2,080 hours, which is simply 40 × 52. Divide any salary by 2,080 and you have the hourly rate it corresponds to. It is a useful figure to carry in your head when you are comparing a salaried job with an hourly one.

But 2,080 assumes you are paid for all 52 weeks. If you take unpaid leave, or your work is seasonal, or you are a contractor who does not get paid holidays, the real figure is lower and your true hourly rate is higher than the headline suggests.

What unpaid weeks do Two unpaid weeks means you are paid for 50, not 52. At $34.62 an hour that is $69,231, not $72,000.

That is a 3.8% pay cut hiding inside a salary figure that never changes. Put the unpaid weeks into the box above and the whole table adjusts.

Yearly salary calculator: the numbers that change the answer

Converting a salary is only as accurate as the assumptions underneath it. Three settings do most of the damage when they are wrong.

Yearly salary calculator: the numbers that change the answer
Setting	Why it matters
Hours a week	A 37.5-hour week is common in office work and makes a salary worth about 6.7% more an hour than a 40-hour week at the same pay.
Paid weeks a year	Paid holiday keeps you at 52. Unpaid leave, furlough or seasonal work reduces it, and your effective hourly rate rises accordingly.
Overtime	Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, covered non-exempt employees must be paid at least time and a half for hours over 40 in a week. Five overtime hours a week is worth another 18.75% of base pay.

That last one is worth dwelling on, because overtime is where hourly work quietly beats a salary. Five extra hours at time and a half is 7.5 hours of pay for 5 hours of work, every week. A salaried colleague working the same five extra hours is paid nothing for them.

Gross salary calculator, or take-home: which number are you after?

Your gross salary is what the job advert says and what the offer letter promises. Your take-home pay, sometimes called net pay, is what arrives in your account after tax and deductions. People negotiate in gross and live on net, which is why the gap deserves a moment of attention.

$72,000 in 2026, single, no state income tax Federal income tax: $7,010. Social Security: $4,464. Medicare: $1,044.

Take-home: $59,482 a year, which is about $4,957 a month.

So roughly 17.4% of that salary never reaches you, and that is before any state income tax, which in some states would take several thousand more.

The single most useful habit here is to build your budget on the take-home figure and treat the gross as a negotiating number only. People who plan around gross pay are consistently surprised in the wrong direction.

Pay net calculator: what actually comes out of your paycheck

Four things usually come out before the money reaches you, and they behave quite differently.

Federal income tax. Charged in bands on your taxable income, which is your pay minus the standard deduction and any pre-tax contributions. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 if you file single, $32,200 married filing jointly, and $24,150 as head of household.
Social Security, 6.2%. Charged only up to the wage base, which is $184,500 for 2026. Above that, nothing more is taken, so the maximum any employee pays is $11,439. This is why high earners see their take-home jump late in the year.
Medicare, 1.45%. Charged on every dollar, with no cap at all. An extra 0.9% applies above $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 filing jointly.
State and local income tax. Nine states charge no income tax on wages at all. Elsewhere it ranges from around 2% to over 13%. The calculator asks for your rate rather than guessing, because this is the figure that varies most.

Two deductions behave differently from each other, and the distinction saves people real money. Money you put into a 401(k) reduces your federal taxable income but not your Social Security and Medicare, so you still pay 7.65% on it. Health insurance premiums taken through a workplace plan usually come out before both, so they reduce your income tax and your payroll tax. That makes a dollar of health premium slightly more tax-efficient than a dollar of retirement contribution, which almost nobody realises.

Weekly and biweekly pay: why 26 paychecks is not two a month

How often you are paid does not change what you earn in a year, but it changes what lands and when, and the two common schedules are not the same thing.

Weekly and biweekly pay: why 26 paychecks is not two a month
Schedule	Paychecks a year	On $72,000
Weekly	52	$1,384.62
Every two weeks (biweekly)	26	$2,769.23
Twice a month (semimonthly)	24	$3,000.00
Monthly	12	$6,000.00

Being paid every two weeks gives you 26 paychecks, not 24. So twice a year there is a month containing three paydays. The same annual salary, sliced differently. People treat those third paychecks as a windfall, and if your rent comes out monthly while your pay arrives fortnightly, that is exactly what they are, which also means the other ten months are tighter than they look.

If you are on that schedule, it is worth budgeting on 24 paychecks and letting the two extra ones be genuinely spare. It converts a recurring squeeze into a twice-yearly surplus, for no change in income at all.

Effective rate against marginal rate

This is the most widely misunderstood thing about income tax, and it costs people real opportunities.

Your marginal rate is the band your next dollar falls into. Your effective rate is what you actually pay across all your income. On $72,000 as a single filer the marginal band is 22%, but the federal tax actually paid works out at 9.7% of gross pay. The bands apply in slices: the first $12,400 of taxable income is taxed at 10%, the next slice at 12%, and only the part above $50,400 is touched by 22%.

Some people turn down a raise because it would “put them in a higher bracket”. That is not how it works, and it cannot happen. Only the dollars above the threshold are taxed at the higher rate, so a raise always leaves you with more. A $5,000 raise on this salary is worth $3,518 after tax, you keep 70% of it, about $293 more a month. Less than the headline, but unambiguously more than refusing it.

What this calculator cannot tell you

It works out what you owe for the year. Your actual paycheck is a different question, and the difference is worth understanding before you compare this with your payslip.

Withholding is not the same as tax owed. Your employer withholds using IRS tables and the W-4 you filed. If too much comes out you get a refund; if too little, you owe in April. This page estimates the liability, not the withholding.
State and local tax is a flat rate here. Most states use bands of their own, and some cities add their own tax on top. Putting in your top state rate gives a reasonable estimate rather than an exact figure.
It assumes the standard deduction. If you itemise, have dependants, claim credits, or have self-employment income, your real position will differ, sometimes substantially.
It does not know your benefits. Employer retirement matching, HSA contributions and similar all change the picture in your favour.

Use it for comparing offers, checking a quoted hourly rate, and seeing roughly what a raise is worth. For your filing position, a figure from your own payroll records or an accountant will always beat an estimate from a web page, including this one.

Sources and review

Reviewed on 23 Oct 2026 against the published sources below. Rules and prices change, so check the current position before you rely on a figure.

Common questions

How do I calculate my annual salary from an hourly rate?

Multiply the hourly rate by the hours you work in a week, then by the number of weeks you are paid. At 40 hours over 52 weeks that is 2,080 hours a year, so $34.62 an hour works out at $72,000. If you have unpaid weeks off, use the number of paid weeks instead of 52.

How many hours are in a working year?

2,080 hours is the standard figure, which is 40 hours multiplied by 52 weeks, and it is what most payroll departments use. A 37.5-hour week gives 1,950 hours, which makes the same salary worth about 6.7% more per hour.

What is the difference between gross pay and take-home pay?

Gross pay is your salary before anything is taken out, which is the figure quoted in a job offer. Take-home pay, or net pay, is what reaches your account after income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state tax and any deductions such as retirement contributions and health premiums. On a $72,000 salary the difference is around $12,500 before state tax.

How much tax comes out of a $72,000 salary?

For a single filer in 2026, taxable income after the $16,100 standard deduction is $55,900, giving federal income tax of about $7,010. Social Security takes 6.2% and Medicare 1.45% of the full salary, which is $4,464 and $1,044. That is roughly $12,518 in total, or 17.4% of gross, before any state income tax.

Why do I get 26 paychecks instead of 24?

Because being paid every two weeks gives 26 paychecks a year, while being paid twice a month gives 24. They are different schedules. On a biweekly cycle there are two months each year containing three paydays, which is why budgeting on 24 paychecks and treating the extra two as spare tends to work better.

Will a pay rise push me into a higher tax bracket and leave me worse off?

No. Tax bands apply in slices, so only the dollars above a threshold are taxed at the higher rate and the rest of your income is unaffected. A $5,000 raise on a $72,000 salary leaves you with about $3,518 more after tax, roughly $293 a month. A raise always leaves you better off.

Is this the same as my payslip?

Not exactly. This estimates the tax you owe for the year, while your payslip reflects what your employer withholds based on the W-4 you filed and IRS withholding tables. If too much is withheld you get a refund, and if too little you owe at filing. State and local taxes are entered as a single flat rate here, while most states use bands of their own.

Guides that explain the rules

Related tools

This tool produces a document from the information you type. It does not give legal, tax or accounting advice, and it does not check that your figures or rates are right. See the disclaimer. Found a mistake? Report an error in a calculation.